“Although the additional use of TMZ (trimetazidine) failed to reduce all-cause mortality in CHF patients, the beneficial effects have been demonstrated,” conclude Dr. Junbo Ge, at Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and colleagues.

Trimetazidine, approved outside the US as an antianginal agent, has been shown to reduce oxidative damage and improve endothelial function, and is considered promising for CHF, they explain. However, trial results have been mixed.

The team therefore conducted a meta-analysis of data from 16 relevant randomized controlled trials involving 884 CHF patients. The results showed that hospitalizations for cardiac causes were reduced with the use of trimetazidine (risk ratio 0.43, p=0.03), but the reduction in all-cause mortality was not statistically significant (RR 0.47; p=0.27).

“Moreover,” Dr. Ge and colleagues add, “as illustrated by the unchanged resting blood pressure and an average decrease of a mere 2.6 beats/min in resting heart rate, our study indicated that the aforementioned beneficial effects may be hemodynamically neutral.”

Overall, they conclude the results show that trimetazidine “may be an additional therapeutic agent for CHF.”